After he was traded, and the deal was vetoed, and the rumors wouldn't stop, and he flamed out in the playoffs, and more chatter started, and he stayed with the Lakers, and he led Spain to a silver medal in the Olympics, Pau Gasol finally took a break.

"I needed to breathe," he said. "Just breathe and forget about the stress."

Gasol fled the summer heat and the frenzied pace of Barcelona.

It was cooler and quieter in the mountains, far from the bustle of his hometown.

"I disconnected as much as I could," he said.

The Pyrenees Mountains serve as a natural border between Gasol's native Spain and France, just to the north. The range might as well have been a barrier between Gasol and the rest of the world for four restful days last summer.

"It helped me to go to the mountains and connect with nature," Gasol said. "I enjoyed every single minute I was there in the Pyrenees."

It was the perfect spot to prepare for the first days of the rest of his life.

After eight days in the African nation of Chad in his role as an ambassador with UNICEF, after a few more days of rest and relaxation at home, after the seemingly endless flight to Los Angeles, Gasol rejoined the Lakers for training camp.

Gasol looked the same as when he was last in El Segundo. He wore the same welcoming smile and the same unkempt mop of brown hair. He greeted teammates, friends and visitors alike with a hearty, "Hey!" and a firm handshake.

He chatted in English and Spanish and then English again.

He seemed to be happy to be back in Southern California once more.

He was a changed man, however. He was older, wiser, maybe a little wary, too.

"It's been an experience," Gasol, 32, said of his life since the Lakers tried and failed to trade him to the Houston Rockets in a multi-player and multi-team deal that would have brought Chris Paul to them from the New Orleans Hornets in December.

"I've learned a lot of things from it," he added. "I've learned how to deal with it and how to not let it affect me too much and how to go on with my daily life as normally as possible. There has been a lot going on. It's not been an easy situation to deal with. -

"Now I can focus on playing basketball."

The game was his refuge last season. No one could pester him about the latest trade rumor while he was playing power forward for the Lakers. It was the one time in his days and nights he wasn't thinking about his future, about his next possible destination.

When he wasn't traded, when Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak acquired point guard Steve Nash from the Phoenix Suns and center Dwight Howard from the Orlando Magic in a pair of blockbuster trades, Gasol could exhale again.

Briefly.

Forget about the past

Forgive him, but in London, at the Olympics, in August, Gasol wasn't thinking about the Lakers. National pride was at stake. He led Spain to the gold-medal game against Kobe Bryant and the United States for the second consecutive Olympics.

Winning gold was on his mind at that moment.

It wasn't until Bryant wrapped him in a bear hug for the world to see after the buzzer sounded Americans' victory and whispered words of consolation and encouragement in his ear that Gasol returned his focus to the Lakers.

"Rest up because we've got work to do," Bryant told him.

In other words forget the past, focus on the present, on winning an NBA title.

"The pieces fit," Bryant said recently of the new-look Lakers. "We just have to go out and do our jobs every day. We haven't won it as a group. The only guys left from the last time we won it are myself, Metta (World Peace) and Pau."

Of Gasol, Bryant said, "I don't know if he's changed. He seems a little bit more comfortable. He doesn't seem as on edge. If you don't know where you're going to be tomorrow, you might be in a completely different state of mind. It was a little weird.

"It was difficult, obviously, but he handled it like a professional. He's one of the best players we have in the league. You're not going to get value for him (in a trade) anywhere, you know what I mean? There's really no point to (trading him).

"One of the things Jimmy and I talked about was seeing if we could make this happen (overhauling the roster) and still keep Pau. That was really, really important. That was way before everything went down, before I left for the Olympics."

Bryant referred to Jim Buss, a team executive and the son of owner Jerry Buss.

Buss and Kupchak sent four draft picks to the Suns to acquire Nash.

The deal for Howard was far more complex, with center Andrew Bynum going to the Philadelphia 76 ers and backup forwards Josh McRoberts and Christian Eyenga and two picks heading to the Magic to complete the four-team swap.

"It was a feather in ownership's cap that they would give the basketball people the option to make the best deal possible," Kupchak said of completing the two blockbuster trades without giving up Gasol. "It was something everybody was trying to do."

Coach Mike Brown leaped to his feet and hugged Buss and Kupchak when they entered his office to deliver the news that they had acquired Howard and kept Gasol. "I almost pulled my hammy," Brown joked, retelling the story the other day.

"I thought he came through it great," Brown said of Gasol's season of tumult. "He did a terrific job of handling all that stuff. You give him credit for the kind of person he is. His name, for some reason, was always involved in rumors out there."

'I'm my biggest critic'

So, now that Gasol knows he's not going to be traded anywhere in the immediate future - his contract with the Lakers runs out after next season, however - there are new pressures to be overcome, starting with his game.

His scoring average dipped to 17.4 points last season and he wasn't selected to the Western Conference All-Star team for the first time in four seasons.

Most disturbing, his average fell to a career-low 12.5 points on 43.4 percent shooting during the playoffs.

The Lakers lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder in five games in the second round last May, one year after they tumbled to the eventual NBA champion Dallas Mavericks in four games. Their back-to-back titles in 2009 and '10 seemed like ancient history.

"A lot of things have to happen for you to rise above everyone else, and the last two years haven't gone that way," Gasol said of the Lakers' early playoff exits after they advanced to the NBA Finals in three consecutive seasons.

Naturally, some of the blame fell heavily on Gasol's shoulders.

"People have high expectations of us," he acknowledged. "People on the street have been nothing but supportive. I can't recall one guy coming to me and making a negative remark, so that tells me I'm doing things right."

One way to keep Lakers fans cheering rather than jeering is to play more forcefully with the ball in his hands. He has been hammered again and again for playing too passively in the past, too willing to defer to his teammates.

Gasol was once the Lakers' second option behind Bryant. Last season, he dropped to the third spot behind Bryant and Bynum. This season, it's likely he'll be the No. 4 option after Bryant and newcomers Howard and Nash.

It's a role Gasol is willing to accept and one at which he plans to excel.

"I'm my biggest critic," he said. "I'm always very demanding of myself. I want to give nothing but the best at all times. When I don't, it affects me and it upsets me and frustrates me. Last year was just a year with a lot of difficult challenges.

"You don't have to dwell on those tough moments, though. You have to go through them and you digest them. You have to understand why it happened and then you try to put yourself in a position so you don't have to go through it again."